I know I have complained a lot about Symantec lately, but now that I'm no longer an employee and now that I no longer have to worry about being laid off, downsized, right-sized, or let go, I'm no longer affected by the bad.  Obviously, I wouldn't have stayed with Symantec as long as I did if there hadn't been a lot of good.

In July, 2001, when I started with Symantec, I was living in a 1710 square foot house.  I had tens of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, credit card debt, and car loans.

I was given a bunch of incentive stock options when I was hired by Symantec.  In the next three years, the price of the stock went up, up, and up!  There were three 2:1 stock splits.  My stock options became valuable.  We were able to pay off student loans, credit cards, other debts, and we even paid a landscaping company to landscape our home.

I also participated in the employee stock purchase plan.  For a while, I could purchase Symantec at the lowest price in the previous three years, discounted 15%.  This meant another pretty good chunk of money every six months that we could use to pay off more debt and make other home improvements.

Before Symantec let me go in 2006, I was able to purchase the house we now live in, which is more than double the size of our previous home.  When I was "downsized," I used the severance package Symantec offered me to finish the basement of my home.

Financially, Symantec has been very good for me.  Now, the only debt I have is my mortgage, and it's a lot smaller than it would be had we been paying the minimum payment every month.  My employment with Symantec, even up until the end, has been a financial blessing.

Symantec's other benefits have been very good as well.  I had LASIK surgery five years ago.  The medical benefits have been great.  The dental benefits have been good as well.  The orthodontic benefits have paid for two sets of braces for my two sons.

While working for Symantec, I was able to see Castle Neuschwanstein in Germany.  I was able to dive coral reefs off of Key West.  I saw aircraft carriers in San Diego and I went four-wheeling on the San Andreas fault near Palm Springs.

The past nine years have been good for my career.  I received my Top Secret security clearance from the Defense Security Service.  I earned my CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional) certification.  I worked in large enterprise environments.  I gained practical experience in Java, C++, C#/.NET, and learned to use a variety of databases.

I have worked with some very smart, very fun, and very cool people.  I look forward to crossing paths with many of them through the rest of my career.

The good really has outweighed the bad.  In the end, I'm very grateful for the experiences I've had at Symantec.

Yesterday, I watched a steady trickle of former Symantec employees carry their belongings to their vehicles, turn in their ID badges, and drive away.  Yes, Symantec "downsized" another group in the Lindon office.

It's just plain crazy.

How crazy?  Well, I came up with an analogy that might explain the situation a little better.

Laying off employees--especially the employees that actually create and produce the products that the company sells--in order to cut costs and please shareholders is quite a bit like opening your carotid artery because you have very high blood pressure.  The "cure" will certainly work in the short term, but it will cause other, more serious problems in the long term.

A friend that I worked with in Symantec's American Fork office (incidentally he's an American ex-patriot living in France and still a Symantec employee) had the following to say on the matter:

A long time ago, "good" companies figured if they kept their employees happy everything would work out better for everyone.

Then someone got the bright idea that "the customer is always right" even though that often caused bad friction for employees.

And now, supposedly "good" companies care only about their shareholders, which leads to decisions that are often bad for employees, products, and even customers.

Ironically, since you can never guess what's going to make shareholders happy, it's all a crap shoot anyway.

That makes a LOT of sense to me.

So now that I've said my piece, I think I can leave this alone.  The one thing I have HATED about working for Symantec is the constant laying off of good people for business purposes.  I don't expect my new job to be perfect, because it's still going to be a business and it's still going to be full of imperfect people and the politics and issues that inevitably arise in interpersonal business relationships.

I am NOT going to miss watching good people leave the business for the good of the shareholders.  I am not going to miss watching my company bleed itself out to solve a high blood pressure problem.

Goodbye, Symantec.  And in this particular sense, good riddance.

Five years after having my LASIK procedure, my eyes are still doing very well.

Today I went in for a "well-care" eye exam before I lose that particular benefit from Symantec.  (Yes, there ARE things about Symantec I'm going to miss.)

My eyes are alllllllllmost 20/15 still.  They're better than 20/20, and that's really what counts.  Five years later, I'm still happy I had LASIK and given the choice, I would still do it again in a heartbeat.

Hooray for modern technology!

Change is officially on its way!  I can now be less cryptic.

Symantec Corporation and I have a relatively long history as far as employer-employee relationships go.  I first heard that Symantec had a local office from a friend in my previous Ward.  He told me that I should give him my resume and come work with him.  This was back in November or December, 2000.

In the fall of 2000, I had gone through a bit of job instability.  I was working for an Internet startup company called PageLaunch.com.  A very good friend was the head technical guy (CTO if you will) and I had become friends with the CEO.  The company was funded by a venture capital firm that would fund startup companies here and there.  PageLaunch was located in the corporate offices of the venture capital company.  It was a good job...

...until the president of the venture capital firm made some purely emotional decisions.  He ended up firing the CEO while my CTO friend was on vacation.  When my friend came back from vacation, he met with the venture capital guy and ended up getting fired during that meeting.  Suddenly, I was the only one left in the very small company that knew anything about the product we had created.  The venture capital guy who had made all of these emotional decisions quickly met with me and offered me a rather large raise.  At that point, I didn't really care that much about the money.  I was terrified that I would be the next one to go.  I did the sane thing and sent resumes out everywhere.

A couple of weeks later I had received a verbal offer from another software company, so I sent an email to everyone in the company, especially the new company president, the venture capital guy, and I shut down my computer and walked out.  About a week later, they shut off the lights at PageLaunch.com and that particular venture ended for good.

Unfortunately for me, the verbal offer never turned into an actual offer because the company that I was supposed to move to suddenly had a hiring freeze.  I was suddenly without a job and didn't have a single prospect.  I did what any sane person would do in my situation.  I freaked out.

I called on the resumes I had sent out previously and within a couple of days, I had two job offers.  One was for a job I would really have enjoyed a lot.  The other was for a job I wouldn't really enjoy as much, but it was at a company that had been in business and had been profitable for more than ten years.  I took the offer for the stable job.

Within a couple of months at the new "stable" job, my manager was telling us that the new version of the software (which we had barely started creating) needed to be out by a certain date or we would ALL lose our jobs because the company (mainly a hardware company, not a software company) would use off-the-shelf software.  My stable job became unstable very quickly.  I did the sane thing and sent out more resumes.

My friend that worked for Symantec told me that they had a job opening again, so I gave him a copy of my resume.  I interviewed with several people at Symantec.  One of the hiring managers was out sick the day I came in to interview, so he hadn't met me yet.  I waited a few days and then called back to follow up.  The director of development told me that the timing of my call couldn't have been better.  He said that the people that interviewed me were in his office at that moment and that they were making a decision.  He said that if I could come in right away, the last person I needed to meet (who obviously wouldn't vote to hire me because he hadn't met me) would meet with me and THEN they would make the decision.  I cam in, interviewed, and they decided to hire me.

I started working for Symantec at the beginning of July in 2001.  I was hired to support the Navy/Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI) project.  One of the requirements of NMCI was to use all Consumer Off-The-Shelf (COTS) software.  No software would be developed specifically for NMCI.  Since Enterprise Security Manager (ESM), the software developed in the American Fork office of Symantec, would have no bigger customer than NMCI, the ESM team decided that it would be good to have a development resource dedicated to NMCI.  When NMCI had requests for bug fixes, new features, or needed something done quickly, I could make these changes.  Since these changes would go into the main ESM product and would be released to everyone, the COTS requirement for NMCI was still met.

My first three years at Symantec, I worked with the NMCI team and enjoyed it tremendously.  The stock options, employee stock purchase plan, and higher salary than I had ever before earned helped us to pay off student loans, landscape our home, and even buy a new car.  However, after the first three years, things started changing.  Our site director and all of the development managers were suddenly fired.  There were several rounds of layoffs over the next couple of years.  I survived each round, but I began to feel less and less stable in my job.

On the day that I received my "thank you" gift for five years of service at Symantec, there was an all-hands meeting in which Symantec told us that the American Fork office was closing and that ESM would be relocating to Houston, TX.  I was told that my job would be ending on December 19th that year (2006).  I would receive a bonus if I worked until the end of September, and another bonus if I worked until the 19th of December.  I thought it was more important to get a new job, so I interviewed at a few companies and received a couple of job offers--one from a print layout company in Springville, and the other from Altiris, Inc. in Lindon.

I took the offer from Altiris, accepted my severance package from Symantec (which I used to finish my basement) and moved on.  I was hired to develop a Software Development Kit (SDK) for Altiris' Notification Server platform.  There were a couple of problems early on at Altiris, mostly due to my manager at the time.  He didn't give me any of the training that I needed so I floundered for a little while.

A few months after I started working for Altiris, they announced that Symantec was purchasing Altiris.  My first reaction brought back all of the feelings I had when Symantec laid me off.  I was NOT happy and thought seriously about sending out more resumes.   But after thinking through things again, I realized that Symantec was a known entity--that I understood their processes, their benefits, and a lot of other things that you have to learn when joining a new company.  I calmed down and stayed with Symantec.  Since I had been away from Symantec for less than a year, they "bridged" my tenure.  I kept my original employee ID number and my original hire date in July, 2001.

I still didn't like my manager, but after a year of working with him, I was told I would be working for a new manager.  Instead of sending out resumes (I had decided I couldn't work for this manager any more), I decided to give the new manager a chance.  It turned out to be a good thing.  I really liked my new manager and things went very well for the next couple of years.

The problems started when my team changed from the "SDK Team" to "Developer Services."  Now, in addition to developing the SDK, we were also to help/support other teams both inside and outside Symantec that use the SDK.  I kept developing software full time at first, but gradually, my daily tasks moved farther and farther from development and more and more towards support.  I let my manager know on a regular basis that I was hired to be a full-time developer, but it didn't really change how things were progressing for my particular job.

In August, 2009, in order to help me make up for the knowledge deficit I was still dealing with because of my previous manager's lack of help, my current manager and i decided to have me support a rather large contract.  This would help me learn the platform for which I was developing the SDK.  I took on this responsibility for two reasons:  1)  To improve my own knowledge and 2) because the person who supported this particular contract would be on vacation for a couple of months.  I also took on this responsibility with the caveat that I would be able to return to full-time development.  This change was supposed to be temporary--only six months in length.

It's been almost a month longer than the six months in length and my job still hasn't moved back to full-time development.  At this point, I don't think it ever will, and I'm not ready to move away from development at all at this point.  There are some other smaller issues that I could live with, but the bottom line is that I'm a software engineer.  I want to develop software.  The "support" part of my current job drives me absolutely batty.  Things aren't going to change.

To top everything off, Symantec had another "Reduction In Force" on Tuesday.  More than 70 people were given pink slips.  It was the ninth reduction in force that I went through at Symantec, eight of which I survived.  Symantec purchased Axent in 2000.  Axent is no more.  About 3 years later, Symantec purchased PowerQuest.  As of Tuesday, PowerQuest is no more.  Symantec purchased Altiris in 2007...  Do you see a pattern here?  I certainly do.

So after nearly nine years at Symantec (more or less), it's time for me to move on.  I have accepted a position with the LDS Church as a software engineer and I will be starting there on Monday, 19 April.  There are a couple of things that I will like less than my current position.  I will have a longer commute--about 30 minutes when traffic is good.  It's still not bad.  It's just about double the commute I have currently.  The other thing is that the LDS Church is currently in the middle of a hiring freeze.  I will be working as a "contingent" employee, which means that I will be working for a contracting company called Employer Solutions Group.  I'm not exactly excited about being a contract employee, but I have been told that if I'm a good employee (and I'm not worried about that), I will be brought on as a full-time employee of the LDS Church as soon as the hiring freeze is lifted or when there is a position that opens up if someone were to leave and thereby open up a position.

There are a lot of good things, or obviously I wouldn't be making this change.  First of all, I'll be working for a "company" that I can believe in.  I will be working in the "Content & Media" group.  Every six months at the LDS Church's semiannual General Conference, somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 documents are created.  I will be working on the system that will be used to enter, edit, store, annotate, and retrieve all of these documents for many different things such as print media (The Ensign) and the web (lds.org).  The people I will be working with will be people with my same beliefs and values for the most part.  I'll be making more money, and I will even get benefits like medical, dental, and paid time off, even as a contractor.  I know quite a few people that work for the LDS Church in the Riverton office, so there will even be familiar faces there.  I also don't have to worry about the possibility of Symantec purchasing my  company again.

I'm very excited about this next stage in my career.  I believe it will be a great place to continue my career.  There will be things about Symantec that I will miss.  Their benefits are great.  I'll miss the annual bonus plan.  I'm going to miss being able to purchase Symantec software at cost.  I will mostly miss the people that I've worked with.  I'm excited to get to know a new group of people that will hopefully become good friends.

Change is difficult, but hopefully this change, like so many in the past, will be a good change.

Back in January, I posted cryptically and mysteriously about change.  By the end of the week, that change may be set in motion.

I'm still nervous.  I'm still scared.  I'm still excited.

If it happens, I'll post something.  If not, you'll have to deal with the suspense a little longer.

A month ago today, my neighbor fell from a roof onto a concrete patio sustaining serious injuries including a shattered spleen, damage to his lungs, broken hands, skull fractures, and swelling and bleeding in his brain.  It was bad enough that they told his wife that they didn't expect him to make it through the first surgeries.

He will be released from the hospital (University of Utah Medical Center, his life-flight destination) on Saturday.

It's nothing short of a miracle that he is alive at all.  It's even more miraculous that he is awake, alert, walking, and talking. Miracles continue today, helped along by fasting and prayer from friends, family, and Ward members and by Priesthood blessings.

It will be nice to see my neighbor back home again.

(To see his whole journey, check out the "Nephi Moon Updates" link on the right.)

From both Miss Giggles (or would that be Mrs. Giggles now?) and The Book Guardian:

1. What are at least 2 of your favorite genres?  I've been enjoying historical fiction lately.  I also like action and some fantasy.
2. What is your least favorite genre?  Romance, though I've never read a romance novel, so I can't be sure.
3. What is your all-time favorite book?  I'm really not sure.  J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit is way up there, but mostly for sentimental reasons.
4. What is the first book you remember reading?  I remember sitting in my kindergarten class during play time, surrounded by 5 or 6 other kids and I was reading Harry the Dirty Dog to them.
5. Do you prefer books or audio books?  Definitely books.  I've never actually listened to an audio book.  I don't want someone else's voice interpreting what I'm reading.  I'll let the voices in my head to the interpretations.
6. Who are your favorite authors?  J.R.R. Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Robert Jordan, Tom Clancy, Scott Adams...  I can't think of very many favorites right now.
7. How many books do you read in a year?  A couple dozen, maybe more.
8. Do you buy books or borrow them from the library? Both.
9. How many books do you own?  A couple hundred probably.
10. What is your most prized book?  A bible I purchased in The Netherlands with Rembrandt illustrations.
11. What are the worst books you have ever read (or tried to read)?  None that are memorable.  If I don't like it, I just drop it and find something else.  There's too much good stuff out there to waste reading time on the bad.
12. Have you read any modern day sequels you liked?  I don't know what exactly is meant by "modern day sequels."
13. What is your favorite quote from a book?  "Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all." --Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.
14. Who is your all-time favorite male character?  Zaphod Beeblebrox  "It is said that his birth was marked by earthquakes, tidal waves, tornadoes, firestorms, the explosion of three neighbouring stars, and, shortly afterwards, by the issuing of over six and three quarter million writs for damages from all of the major landowners in his Galactic sector.  However, the only person by whom this is said is Beeblebrox himself, and there are several possible theories to explain this.
15. Who is your all-time favorite female character?  Eowyn.  "I am not a serving-woman.  I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.  But I do fear to stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."
16. What highly recommended book have you not liked? The Secret.  It think it's rubbish.
17. Name a character you love to hate?  Zaphod Beeblebrox!
18. Do you belong to a book club?  No.
19. What was the last book you purchased?  The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan.
20. What are you reading now? Mostly technical-type books.  I'm between library books at the moment, but we're planning a trip back to the library on Saturday.
21. What book made you cry the hardest?  I'm sure at some point in my childhood, one of my brothers hit me with a book and that made me cry, but I can't remember the title.
22. 22. What book made you laugh the most? Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook by Scott Adams
23. 23. What is your favorite children's book (one you would choose to read to your kids)?  I recently read Alvin Mendelsohn, Boy From Mars by Daniel Manus Pinkwater to my sons.
24. If you were to choose a book to give as a gift, what would it be? Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency.  It's small, cheap, and HILARIOUS.
25. List 5 books you have read more than once?  The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, The Harry Potter Series, Dogbert's Top Secret Management Handbook
26. What is your favorite book made into a movie?  Probably the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.
27. Did you like the book or movie better?  Always the book.
28. What book would you like to see made into a movie? I've really never thought about that.  I don't usually like books made into movies, so why wish for a book to be made into a move?
29. Do you prefer hardcover or soft copy?  No preference.
30. Do you leave the dustcover on while you are reading a book?  Yes.
31. Where do you usually read? In a comfortable chair or laying in bed, though if I'm in bed, I tend to start drifting off to sleep.
32. When do you usually read? Evenings and weekends, usually.
33. Do you keep a TBR (to-be-read) list? Nope
34. Do you usually have more than one book that you are reading at a time? No, not usually.
35. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? I don't remember NOT having a love for reading, so I don't remember developing it.

I was presented with my Wood Badge beads tonight at my Ward Court of Honor.  It was a very cool thing.  My Wood Badge Ticket Counselor was there along with the course director, his wife (who was a scribe on the course) and one of the members of my Owl patrol.  It's good to be recognized for a lot of work--the culmination of a lot of effort.

After my ticket counselor talked a bit about Wood Badge and explained the significance of Wood Badge and "working a ticket," I was asked to come forward.  My wife came up with me and they asked her to remove my "Troop 1" neckerchief and Woggle.  Then I was given the wood badge beads (placed around my neck by the scribe) and the Wood Badge neckerchief and Woggle (placed around my neck by both the course director and scribe).  They also gave me a framed certificate:  "Wood Badge given by Boy Scouts of America to DeShawn Smith in recognition of completing the National Wood Badge requirements Wood Badge for the 21st Century."   My ticket counselor also gave me a council patch that has an owl and wood badge beads on it.  It's a different shape and size , so I'll have to re-sew everything on the left sleeve of my uniform, but it will be worth it.

I'm the fourth person in that course to finish working my ticket.  I know that several more are close to completing their ticket items.

I am grateful to the staff of my Wood Badge course.  Thank you to those that put so much time and effort into WE7-591-3-09-27.  I'm looking forward to serving on staff in the future--probably when I'm no longer Scoutmaster, because that takes up most of my time.

I used to be an Owl,
And a good old Owl too.
But now I'm finished Owling,
I don't know what to do.
I'm growing old and feeble,
And I can Owl no more,
So I'm going to work my ticket if I can.
Back to Gilwell, happy land,
I'm going to work my ticket if I can.

I never really figured myself to be a big-time Scouter.  My own experience as a Boy Scout was, at best, miserable.  I didn't fit in with my troop.  The other troop members picked on me mercilessly.  I can't say I wasn't at least partly to blame, because once I started disliking going to scouts, I quit trying to fit in/get along.

Once I became licensed to drive, I did very little else with Troop 97 in Billings, Montana.  Instead, I would hang out with people that I actually liked and that actually seemed to like me.  I found acceptance with a wonderful group of friends, some of whom I still communicate with on a regular basis to this day.

And thus ended my scouting career as a youth.  I had given up when I was only a couple of merit badges away from earning the rank of Life Scout.  I had done most of the work to become an Eagle scout, but I would never earn that rank.

Quite a few years later, my own sons became cub scouts.  I was made Cubmaster in that particular unit, and I had a good time as Cubmaster.  However, my son's Webelos Den leader and I didn't see eye-to-eye on a few things.  My son didn't really seem to be enjoying going to den meetings, so my wife and I told him he didn't need to go to den meetings any more--that we would help him earn his Arrow of Light.

That didn't go over well AT ALL with the den leader, and it turned quite ugly from there.  I remember thinking that Scouting was failing me once again.  It had failed me as a youth, and it wasn't doing any better with my son.  I remember vowing that I would never EVER have anything to do with the Boy Scouts of America again.  I was DONE.

When my son turned 11 years old, he joined the local troop.  The 11-year-old scout leader was great and he had a good experience with scouting.  Things were getting better.

About the time my son turned 12 years old, we moved into a different home a little ways away.  My son started going to scouts in a different troop.  I didn't know any of the scout leaders in this new troop, so when it came time for his first week-long summer camp, I volunteered to come along.  I thought it would be a good idea to get to know these leaders, because they would be helping both of my sons through scouting over the next few years.

What a difference I saw!  I saw a scouting program that, though not perfect, was more of what I thought scouting should be.  We had a fun week, but more importantly, my attitude toward scouting began to change.

Instead of seeing scouting itself as the problem, I came to realize that it was the leaders' interpretation of scouting that was to blame.  The scout leaders of my youth were probably doing the best they could, but they weren't following the program as it was intended by the scouting movement.  My son's scout leaders were doing the best they could, but they, too, were not following the program as outlined in BSA publications.

A couple of years later, and I found myself in the position of Scoutmaster.

ME??  Scoutmaster?

I decided that I would do everything in my power to make sure that nobody in my troop would have the nightmarish experience I had as a young scout.  Nobody in my troop would be pushed away because I was doing the best I could, but I wasn't really following Scouting.

My first step was to get trained.  There is a lot of training that scout leaders can and SHOULD attend.  It takes quite a bit of time.  But instead of wondering how it's SUPPOSED to be, I had learned enough that I could start to implement what was supposed to be.

The last training I did was Wood Badge training.  It's the "PhD" of Scouting, if you will.  The nicest part of Wood Badge training was that I LIVED the Scouting program as it's SUPPOSED to be implemented for a week.  I saw the ideal, and could then start working to pattern my troop after this ideal.

Wood Badge training doesn't end when the week of practical training is over.  Each Wood Badge participant sets five substantial goals, called ticket items, that they work to complete over the next months.  Up to 18 months can be spent "working your ticket" and I believe that this is really the power of Wood Badge.

In my case, my Wood Badge tickets completely changed how my troop operates.  They have changed young mens' lives in my troop.  They have solidified my desire that no young man should have the horrid experience I had as a child.  They have helped me know how I can better help each young man in my troop.  They have helped young men not be pushed away because I wasn't doing it right--mostly because I wasn't doing much any more.  Instead, I was guiding young men in my troop as THEY began to lead and implement the scouting program as I learned about it at Wood Badge.

It's not always perfect.  Sometimes, it's not very well organized.  But I can see these young men grow as they learn the meaning of leadership.  I have seen lives change.

Tomorrow, I'm going to receive my Wood Badge beads.  My tickets are complete.  I have finished this part of Wood Badge and I will be rewarded tomorrow at a Court of Honor for my troop.

I went to Wood Badge mostly so people would quit bugging me about it.  I ended up learning more than I would have imagined.  I found friendships that will likely last a VERY long time.  I made some great memories.

But the most important thing of all is that I learned what Scouting is supposed to be.  That knowledge will continue to change lives for as long as they'll let me be Scoutmaster of Troop 770.

So it's Valentine's Day on Sunday.  What are you going to do to celebrate this rather commercial holiday?

Most people exchange gifts or go out to dinner and a movie or exchange valentines or some combination of more than one of those things.

For the last 10 years or so, Valentine's Day has meant something different to my wife and me.  It used to mean doing some of the stuff in the list above.  Once your oldest child enters Kindergarten, the meaning changes somewhat drastically.  The time I used to spend figuring out what to do for my wife or the money we used to spend on each other was re-purposed. 

With grade school-aged children, Valentine's Day means:

• Dragging your child to the store so they can pick out a box of valentines so they can give one to each of their classmates.
• Finding out that all of the valentines in the first store aren't cool enough or fancy enough or don't happen to have just the right cartoon character on them.
• Going to several other stores until the child finally realizes that the ideal valentines don't exist and you can convince them to settle for what the stores are actually selling.
• Getting home and realizing that your child has misplaced the class list that has all of their classmates' names on them.
• Helping the child search frantically for the list.
• Getting a break once the list is found, since there's a lull in the activity as the child often spends a good amount of time deciding which child gets which valentine.
• Returning to the store to get some sort of treat to affix to each valentine, because all of your child's friends are going to tape a sucker or something to their valentines.
• Helping the child put together some sort of box for their valentines.  This leads to several fits and tirades because your child had something else in mind--like a life-sized cupid complete with moving wings and real bow-and arrow.  You have something much MUCH simpler in mind, like a shoe box with red, pink, and white construction paper.
• Running out of red, pink, and white construction paper, thus making yet another trip to the store.
• Returning home to find that the glue bottle has gone dry.
• Returning to the store for more glue.
• Learning that your child also has to bring some sort of treat for the Valentine's Day party.  This piece of information usually comes out as your child is being tucked in for the night.
• Spending the rest of the night making cupcakes or cookies or some other treat for the whole class.
• Finding out the next morning that the school doesn't allow home-baked goods any more due to safety and security reasons.
• Rushing out to the store to find all of the other parents from your child's school fighting over the last box of donuts or cookies at the nearby grocery store.
• Going back to the school with the crumbled remnants of heart-shaped cookies you found at the seventh store you visited.
• Realizing that you've spent all of your time worrying about your child's afternoon Valentine's Day party and you've completely forgotten to buy/plan/do something for your spouse.

Those of you that have children understand this.  You KNOW I'm right here!

However...

My youngest child is in Junior High now.  I didn't have to help with a Valentines box.  We didn't buy a single crappy box of crappy valentines.  We don't have to bring a treat for a party.  The above situation is over for me.  OVER.

So this year, I have actually been able to spend some time thinking about my own Valentine. 

And what am I doing this weekend?

I'm going to go camping in the snow with my older son.

Happy Valentine's Day!